


second chances pierce the heart

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NG Codes, New Mastermind, Post-Game, Sacrifice, Self-Sacrifice, Simulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 20:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14702154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: After waking up from the simulation, the participants of the 53rd season of Danganronpa find themselves thrust into a new killing game, this time withforbidden actionsand a whole new mastermind. There's no second chances, no simulation - this is the real deal, and there's going to be death.





	second chances pierce the heart

Danganronpa is over. Saihara’s protest, alongside Harukawa and Yumeno, had crashed the Neo-World Program into a state beyond repair, and the worldwide outrage that had followed had divided the general public into varying opinions. Of course, there were – and still are – diehard Danganronpa fans who lust for nothing more than the terror of young adults brutalising each other, but the United Nations had passed a motion signalling that Danganronpa broadcasts, including those from previous games already passed, must be halted for the foreseeable future.

Of course, the sixteen players of the fifty-third season had only witnessed this uproar through the blaring television screens in the hospital where they have been staying for the past year. In the three hundred and sixty-five days since they realised that they were alive, the only time they’ve seen the outside world has been through news reports. Even the rooftop of the building is closed off, with even tighter security now after Hoshi had found a way up there to smoke in the first few weeks of their collective recovery.

 _Recovery._ An extensive process of therapy and medication and slow conditioning. These sixteen remnants of their former selves had been stuck between personalities, burned by the acidic clash of who they were before, and who they were in the game. Still, it had dawned on them all that they could never fully retrieve their pre-game memories, and they blossomed in darkness into ghostly versions of the faux-Ultimates that they thought they were within the world of Danganronpa.

But now, the calendar has ticked along until the end, sighing its last breath as the year inside the hospital is up. Sixteen rebirths; sixteen unknowns…they all stand at the doors of the building, waiting for the doors to creak open and for the world to engulf them once more. A re-emergence of personality.

The blinding light of the outside world shines painfully in their eyes. Now, after all this, the world must be too much for them. One by one, stuck in their own confusion, exchanging terrified and worried glances to each other, they black out onto the floor of their not-quite-home that they are not-quite-moving from.

* * *

 

Akamatsu wakes up. Her head hurts, and she almost falls into a panic attack at the memory of being trapped in a locker before everything went to hell – but no, her therapist taught her against that. She’s fine.

_I’m okay I’m alive I’m okay I’m alive I’m okay I’m alive I’m okay I’m alive._

Repeating this in her head, she sits up. At least she’s not alone – she sees her fifteen friends around her, still sleeping; she raises her hand to touch her throbbing forehead and notices a thick, black bracelet on her wrist. When she pulls at it, it just seems to stick harder against her skin, and she feels it pinch into her.

But her main worry now is the fact that her friends look dead. She’s only ever seen one dead body before, and at the time, she thought that she…

No. That’s not important. She pulls her aching body from the floor and runs over to Amami, resting her hand on his chest to check that the rise and fall of his breathing is there – it doesn’t reassure her in the way she had hoped it would, but at least he’s alive.

Leaving his unconscious body, she sees Shirogane on the floor, sleeping like the rest of them – even now, having been exposed as the mastermind, Akamatsu still has conflicting feelings towards her. Every morning, she feels the rope around her neck as she realises that she shouldn’t be alive, but she can’t find it in her new heart to blame Shirogane for any of it. They were all taken in by the world of Danganronpa, even the mastermind herself, and Akamatsu knows that Shirogane would never have _truly_ wanted to kill her…not out of hate, at least. It’s a complex relationship, but they’ve spent a year together – they all have.

And back then, when she had seen every day that Shirogane suffered as much as they did, she humanised her slowly within her mind. A cruel, heartless mastermind would have been able to walk out of Danganronpa with their head held high, but on the nights when Akamatsu found Shirogane almost screaming at herself in her room, it became evident that she was just another pawn in the larger scheme of a diseased society.

So she sits by Shirogane, shaking her shoulders and trying to wake her up. When she does, she’s startled, and almost pushes Akamatsu away, before realising who she is. Still, she looks terrified, and Akamatsu helps her into a sitting position.

“W-What’s going on?” Shirogane says.

“Be honest with me,” Akamatsu replies, “is this something to do with you, or Team Danganronpa?”

“Wait…w-what? Where are we?”

“I’ll take that as a no. Look, all I remember is blacking out and waking up here with this…bracelet thing on my wrist. You’ve got one too – see?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know that yet. But if you say you’re not involved, I’ll trust you.”

“Huh,” Shirogane sighs, “trusting me. That’s nice.”

“We should try to wake the others up.”

“Yeah, but look,” she points to Harukawa, “it looks like they all already are.”

Slowly, over the next few minutes, everyone either wakes up on their own, or is shaken awake by Akamatsu and Shirogane. One by one, the realisation that something bad is happening hits them – there’s a feeling of unease that settles over the room.

But they barely get time to talk before television screens light up the room and a picture of Monokuma illuminates the screen.

“No, no, no, no,” Yonaga choruses, holding her head in her hands and breathing shallowly, “not again, please not again,” she repeats _‘no’_ and ‘ _please’_ and _‘not again’_ until Yumeno holds her hand.

Harukawa immediately rushes over to Momota and tries to block him with her body, as if protecting him from something yet unseen. He, back to back with her, has the same intention, and their hands are clasped together, holding onto one another whilst the numb chants of _‘not again’_ echo with ominous and heavy meaning in their minds.

Ouma, seeing this, backs away from Momota with fear in his eyes. They haven’t spoken in the past year, and they don’t intend to change that – there’s still a vicious disconnect between the two, with the way Momota can’t see Ouma without seeing his own blood in his mouth, and the way Ouma can’t even hear Momota’s name without feeling his body break. They were never made to be friends.

“W-What is this?” Iruma says, quietly, backing into Kiibo and gasping at the shock. He holds her arms and pulls her into him – they’ve been close ever since the Kiibo AI was the only thing to survive the Neo-World Program, and his new body is almost an exact replica of how he looked in the game, minus the self-destructive additions from the ending that wasn’t quite a finality.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, “I’m sure it’ll be sorted out.”

“B-But…I’m…”

“You’re _alive,_ Iruma. Hold onto that.”

Gokuhara tries to look at Iruma – he’s been working on that for the past year, and he was getting somewhere…they even had tea together sometimes, but seeing that awful black and white creature, seeing her scared…he looks at his hands and wants to cry.

“Long time no see!” Monokuma’s avatar grins widely as the all-too-familiar voice bursts through the room, silencing even Yonaga’s pleas. “Are you all ready for another killing game?”

“A-Another…killing game?” Akamatsu chokes out.

“Yep! I ain’t done with you guys yet!”

“W-What?” Saihara says.

“N-No…” Ouma gasps, “we did our time in Danganronpa…we signed up for last season but…we never signed up for this!”

“Life sucks, kid! And this time we’re going all out! No simulation, no second chances. You die here, you’re gone.”

“B-But,” Yonaga says, and Yumeno holds onto her arm in terror.

“See those little bracelets you’re wearing? They’re gonna light up in a bit, once I’ve explained the rules. They’ve got what I like to call _forbidden actions_ on them – basically, you do what your bracelet says, and you die, so you better keep watch on your actions!”

“T-This isn’t…how you operate,” Akamatsu says, trying to be brave, “where’s the murder that you love? This isn’t created by Team Danganronpa…they wouldn’t…you’re…”

“Yep, you got it! We’re back with a brand-new set of rules and, you guessed it, there’s a mastermind for this one too!”

Everyone’s eyes turn, burning into Shirogane.

“But,” Monokuma says, “I still wanna see you guys murder your friends! So we’re gonna have time limits! You’ll all be put to sleep every so often, except the mastermind – and that’s when you’ve gotta make sure you’re in a safe place, ‘cause lemme tell ya, the mastermind this time is aching to kill you!”

“So…” Ouma says, thinking, “there’s a seventeenth student in the building with us? I’m assuming you’ve got the whole place on lockdown, so…it’s someone already in here. I mean…one of us wouldn’t do this, not after everything we went through in Danganronpa. But who…?”

“I bet Team Danganronpa regrets boosting your intelligence,” Monokuma taunts.

“So,” Toujou says “you just want us all to forcibly sleep whilst someone goes around ready to kill us. That’s not in the interest of fairness.”

“Yeah,” Momota chimes in, “we’ve got rights! You can’t just throw us into another killing game! Danganronpa is on a forced hiatus, people won’t stand for this!”

“This building,” Monokuma laughs, “is on lockdown! So the outside world can do what it wants, but nobody’s getting inside here unless _I_ say so! And there are still Danganronpa fans all around the globe, and they’re gonna _love_ this! I’m activating your forbidden actions now. You’ve got thirty seconds to check ‘em out and then the game begins, so if anyone disobeys, boom!”

With that, the screen fades to black and a bright, white overhead light booms on, illuminating the pale, ghostly faces of the sixteen students. A disembodied voice screeches through the room from the speakers on the roof, counting down from thirty. Akamatsu watches her bracelet light up with a red message.

_“Must not answer a question with the truth.”_

What? How can she…? Bile builds in the back of her throat as she remembers the betrayal she caused back in the game, how she’d soaked herself in lies and called it self-belief, how she’d made them trust her and then…killed…tried to kill…

Iruma backs away from Kiibo with terror in her eyes; Kiibo, looking hurt and betrayed, tries to keep his face stoic and walks away from her, too. Ouma runs quickly over to Saihara and links arms with him, whilst Saihara fumbles around for his hat – it’s on the ground next to where he woke up, and he jams it onto his head clumsily. Amami, looking around in horror, does nothing but bite his lip.

The countdown blares out _‘three, two, one’._ Thick, hot, primal fear radiates through the room as nobody speaks just yet, all terrified to be the first one to initiate themselves into this new reality. Until, finally…

“Should we share our forbidden actions with one another?” Toujou says.

“No, I don’t think so,” Momota says, “because if one of us is the mastermind, they’d know exactly how to kill us.”

“Dumbass,” Ouma says, “if they’re the mastermind, they _made_ our forbidden actions. Look, does anyone at all know what’s going on?”

A chorus of confusion echoes through the room.

“C’mon, nobody? Saihara, you were the Ultimate Detective, and you’ve still got that in you. What can you figure out?”

“N-Nothing,” Saihara says, “I’m sorry. I can’t…I’ve failed…I thought I could stop Danganronpa but…”

“It’s alright. Amami, you? There’s no Survivor Perk this time?”

Amami shakes his head.

“C’mon, I need more than that,” Ouma says, “you must know _something._ ”

Amami just keeps shaking his head.

“And you, Akamatsu…you were the initial protagonist, right? Do you know anything?”

Akamatsu freezes up. She can’t tell him that she knows nothing, because she’ll be disobeying her forbidden action, and that’ll kill her. And she can’t die, not first, not again, not ever. She wants to survive this with her friends. Finally, she found something to believe in, even if it was just Team Danganronpa manipulating her feelings – but it’s _real_ to her, and she needs to survive so that she can get out of here with everyone.

Even if surviving means adopting lies back into her bloodstream like venom.

“Yeah, I know something.”

Before anyone can react, there’s a terrible beeping coming from Shirogane’s bracelet. Her eyes widen, and she gasps, trying to back away from everyone, shaking her head as tears prick into her eyes.

“N-No, I didn’t…” she whimpers, “I couldn’t…that’s not my fault…let me start again…please…I…”

Before she can finish her sentence, she makes a choking noise and her hands wring around her own neck, as if she’s trying to undo a rope that isn’t there. Akamatsu panics, knowing all too well how it feels to choke helplessly, and she runs over to Shirogane. But it’s too late.

Shirogane turns blue in the face as she takes gulping breaths of air, but nothing is going into her lungs. The left side of her body turns a horrific purple, and her left eye begins to bulge and bleed until she looks like a dying caricature of the creature she embodied back in Danganronpa. Her hand reaches out, pleading, and Akamatsu holds it as she falls down; Akamatsu kneels at her side and holds onto her as the life finally ebbs out of her and her eyes close, blood trickling down the left side of her face.

Glancing around the room in hopelessness, Akamatsu wonders what the hell happened – surely it isn’t fair to give someone a forbidden action that would immediately kill them, right? But more than that – everyone is confused, because the main suspect for the mastermind would naturally be Shirogane, but she’s lying stone-cold and dead on the floor. It’s not like this could have been faked; this is what death looks like, and her face, stuck permanently in a terrified grimace, proves that Shirogane is, and will now forever be, dead.

“What the _fuck?”_ Ouma says.

“W-What happened?” Saihara replies.

“All we know,” Ouma continues, “is that she must have somehow activated her forbidden action. Right after Akamatsu dropped that little bombshell on us. So ‘fess up, what do you know? And why did Shirogane die?”

“M-Maybe,” Iruma says, “Akamatsu is…the mastermind. I mean, I hate to say it, but…”

“Yeah, I’m the mastermind,” Akamatsu says, feeling the sickening taste of those words in her mouth.

“What?” Momota shouts.

“I’m the mastermind.”

Harukawa, fuelled by her own reckless terror, runs over to Akamatsu and grabs her by the arm.

“What the fuck,” she says, “are you playing at? I thought we were _friends?”_

“Wait,” Momota says, having rushed over to Harukawa to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid, “look at her bracelet.”

Harukawa harshly grabs Akamatsu’s wrist, and then loosens her grip when she reads the words in red. With a pleading glance, Akamatsu stares at her.

“Guys,” Harukawa says, “it’s not her fault. She’s not allowed to tell the truth.”

“Wait, is that her forbidden action?” Yonaga says.

“Yeah,” Harukawa replies, turning to look at Yonaga and seeing her with her eyes closed, “wait, why are you not looking at us? Are you not allowed to open your eyes or something?”

“Hah, ironic,” Ouma taunts, “is this what they call blind faith in Atua?”

“S-Stop,” Yonaga says, “I’m not allowed to see blood. I’ve had my eyes closed since I saw my forbidden action, you guys just didn’t see.”

“Here,” Yumeno walks over to her and tears off a strip of her jacket, tying it around Yonaga’s eyes as a makeshift blindfold, “I’ll hold your hand.”

“The main issue is,” Saihara says, “we don’t know what triggered Shirogane’s forbidden action. If we find that out, then we might be able to realise how sensitive they are to rule breaking.”

He walks over to Shirogane’s body and gently, as if she were still alive, brings her wrist close to his face. Reading the words on it, he closes his eyes in sadness – he knows that this news will bring Akamatsu right back to how she was after Amami’s death in Danganronpa. She’ll feel the heartbreak of responsibility.

“Shirogane wasn’t allowed to witness any lies,” he says.

Akamatsu, her emotions written all over her face, runs from the room and down the corridor.

“I should follow her,” Iruma says, and leaves the room.

* * *

 

Silently, everyone seems to break off into groups. Amami sits on his own in the corner, watching them all choose their allies and try not to die – he can’t do anything about it. Staring at his own bracelet, he’s left alone.

_“Must not speak for the duration of the killing game.”_

He thinks it’s a ridiculous forbidden action, one that essentially stops him from communicating with anybody in the group; if only he were at home with his sisters – or, _sister,_ since he found out after the game that he only has one. But she’s deaf, and he’s still got the muscle memory in his mind of sign language, and he’s glad that Team Danganronpa didn’t remove that from his mind. Still, he doubts that anyone here speaks Japanese Sign Language, so he’s stuck on his own.

The only way for him to vent his anger is to sign a myriad of curse words, some of which he invented himself to make his sister laugh. He sees Momota and Harukawa walking towards him, and he stops himself, putting his hands in his lap and hoping that they don’t think he was just being an idiot.

“Hey, Amami,” Momota says, “were you signing just now?”

Amami nods his head with hope in his eyes.

 _“Can you translate sign?”_ Amami moves his hands fluidly.

“Yeah, I’m a little bad at it but I can get the basics. I’m assuming you’re not allowed to talk?”

_“Yeah, I’m not allowed to speak for the whole game.”_

“He says his forbidden action is speaking,” Momota tells Harukawa, “so you wanna stick with us? I can translate for you.”

Amami nods.

“C’mon then. It’s all gonna go to hell in a minute and Harumaki and I wanna find someplace safe to stay before we’re all hit with the first time limit.”

_“Thank you.”_

As they walk out of the room, trying to avoid attracting any attention that would widen their group beyond three, they’re faced with a long corridor and the choice to turn left or right. Harukawa leads them left, holding onto Momota’s hand whilst Amami stays close to her; after walking for a moment and making a few more turns, she’s sure they’re alone.

They find a side room and Momota immediately sets about barricading the door with tables and chairs, testing the strength of their fortress until he’s satisfied.

“Right, so what do we do now?” Momota says.

“We should…show each other our forbidden actions. It’ll be easier that way, so we don’t accidentally activate one another’s,” Harukawa says, “here’s mine.”

She holds out her wrist.

_“Must not speak the words ‘die’, ‘died’, ‘death’, or ‘dying’.”_

“I guess that one’s easy enough,” Momota says, “just don’t go around asking Ouma if he wants to die, and you’re good.”

“Yeah. And we know Amami’s, so…your turn, Momota.”

“R-Right,” he says, and holds out his wrist in response.

_“Must not let Harukawa Maki die before the fourth time limit is up…”_

He moves his wrist back and puts his hand nervously in his pocket, as if the words themselves are too horrible to bear – the idea that anything other than her survival is a possibility isn’t something he’d ever want to confront, not in this killing game, or in the outside world afterwards.

“So I gotta stick with you,” he says, and she nods, shifting closer to him and holding his hand.

“Hope you’re all enjoying the game so far,” Monokuma’s voice crackles over the speakers in the room, “and since you’re all participating so well, I’m gonna give you a privilege for this first time limit – I’ll tell you when it’s gonna start! So, you’ve got ten minutes to prep yourself, or the mastermind’s gonna get ya!”

“I think there’s not much more we can do,” Harukawa says, “except hope that we don’t…”

“Die?”

“Yeah. Nearly slipped up there.”

“I mean…Shirogane died, and we just left her. I know we all had problems trusting her, but…we were working on it. All of us. Especially Akamatsu, and…god, this is fucked up.”

“And now her body is probably still on the floor.”

“Unless they do what they did in…Danganronpa. Y’know, moving the bodies and all that?”

“Even she doesn’t deserve that. To just be thrown away after the hardest year of her life.”

 _“We can mourn when we’re safe,”_ Rantaro signs, and Momota translates for Harukawa, _“right now we need to double-check that door.”_

“Right,” Momota replies.

Ten minutes passes by like nothing at all, and soon they all seem to be overtaken by an intense sleepiness. Harukawa, being the smallest of the group, falls to the ground first, trying to fight against her own tiredness but ultimately failing. Momota holds her hand as he, too, starts to fall asleep. Both barely conscious, he manages to turn his head towards her.

“You’ll be fine. We’re safe.”

* * *

 

Chabashira wakes up and panics at first – she had found a small room and stayed there alone, her forbidden action burning into her.

_“Must not touch any women.”_

It sucks. It’s like the mastermind is taunting her with how she was in Danganronpa – and now they’re essentially forcing her back into the closet.

Still, she’s alive, and that’ll do for now. She doesn’t know the extent of her forbidden action, whether she’s allowed to be talked to _by_ women, but risking it at such an early stage seems like a pointless endeavour. Contemplating staying in this room forever, she sits up and shakes herself fully awake.

“Looks like we’ve had our first murder!” Monokuma’s voice comes again over the speakers. “I want you all to meet in the central hallway! Anyone who doesn’t come will be punished!”

Ah, so she can’t stay here until it’s all over. Tentatively, she walks away from her room and down towards the central hallway, where she sees people already crowded around. Seeing faces she recognises neither comforts nor scares her, because the horrific reality is that one of her friends is lying dead in the middle of the onlookers.

* * *

 

Hoshi doesn’t know how to react when he sees Toujou’s brutalised body on the floor. He’d given his life to her in the game, and found out when he woke up that it was all for nothing – she’d never been in charge of the country, she was just another unimportant nobody like he was. And he’d let her hit him over the head, struggling only when he couldn’t breathe due to the thick silk of water in his lungs. But now…

She didn’t deserve to die.

“We should check her forbidden action,” he says, “like we should with everyone who dies. I mean…it could help us work out the mastermind’s intent? And I guess…I know for one that I’m curious, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Momota says, “she would’ve wanted us to use her death to survive ourselves.”

“Maybe Toujou in Danganronpa would have wanted that, but she’s not the Ultimate Maid. She’s just a girl, and she was terrified. Look at her face,” Harukawa tells him.

Hoshi, feeling an uneasy sense of responsibility, checks Toujou’s wrist.

_“Must not cross your hands.”_

“Huh,” he says after reading it out loud, “what kind of forbidden action is _that?”_

“I mean,” Chabashira says, “she did do that a lot in Danganronpa.”

“Maybe the mastermind has something against Danganronpa,” Ouma says, “but then again…why would they have a killing game to protest a killing game? None of this makes any fucking sense.”

Hoshi still sits by her body, noting the absolute brutality of her death. She was stabbed, that’s evident from the knife wound in her stomach, but her hands are what fascinate him – they’re splayed either side of her body, a small wound in each one.

“Look,” he says, “it’s like whoever killed her physically stopped her from performing her forbidden action.”

“What use would that be?” Saihara asks.

“Yeah, she’d die either way,” Iruma says.

“So maybe it’s more of a proving-a-point thing,” Ouma says, “like they’re trying to manipulate us through our forbidden actions, even in death.”

“Whatever it is,” Harukawa addresses the group, “it’s safe to say that we’ll only be together again like this when another body is discovered. It’s brutal. And…I’m sorry, Toujou. She shouldn’t have…been killed…like this.”

Iruma looks longingly at Kiibo, trying to gain any form of reaction from him. She’s been working with him so much over the past year, finding their own form of closeness as they’ve both been overcoming Danganronpa together. But now, he seems stoic – he hasn’t even tried to talk to her, and it breaks her heart. She thought, after everything, that they were friends, maybe even more, but whatever this is…he’s different. Is he even the Kiibo she knows…or knew?

Before she can even continue this thought, she hears something whir past her ear and whips around to see a spear poking out from the wall. When she touches the side of her face, she sees blood, and realises that she’s been cut, but the adrenaline coursing through her prevents her from truly feeling the depth of her wound.

“Watch out! It’s boobytrapped,” she shouts, ducking down as another spear exits the wall. Panic riots through the room as everybody starts running, shouting for their friends and trying to escape the protruding spikes in the wall.

In her confusion, she tries to run forward, but finds herself face to face with the wall, stuck in complete, frozen terror.

“Iruma, watch out!” Kiibo shouts, running towards her as another spear starts to jut out of the wall; cliché as it is, she feels everything in slow motion, and two dangers present themselves in her mind.

One: she may be impaled by the spear.

Two: her forbidden action: _“Must not touch anything metal.”_

With Kiibo’s outstretched hand, she backs away from him, wary of her own life, but something more important happens the moment he finishes shouting for her to move. Although she narrowly misses the spear, she watches in horror as Kiibo stops short in his tracks. Purple electricity courses through him, making him convulse in pain, screaming out in such a human voice that she can’t bear not rushing to his side to comfort him. Her emotions overtake her, and she runs to him, making sure not to touch him.

Even when he reaches out to take her hand, she has to back away, with tears in her eyes.

“I…I can’t, Kiibo,” she weeps, showing him her wrist, “but I’m here.”

He lifts his wrist up to show her his forbidden action in return.

_“Must not express any human emotion.”_

“I-It was,” he chokes out between bursts of purple electricity, “w-worth it for you.”

“Kiibo, no, p-please…”

“T-Thank you,” he whispers, “for treating me l-like I was…human.”

“You’re more than h-human. You’re my b-best friend. I love you.”

“I…I’ve always loved you, Iruma.”

“P-Please,” she begs, “don’t go.”

But it’s too late – the electricity has already got the better of him and his left side is lit up in a garish purple. It’s not fair, he didn’t deserve to die like that, and Iruma just wants to hold his hand and be with him, but that would come at the price of her own life, and she’d hate that. Not because she’d hate dying, but because he gave his life for hers, so she has to survive. She absolutely has to live on for him.

Backing away with her hands over her mouth, choking out sobs, all she can think about is all of the nights she spent in his room over the past year, how he comforted her, and she comforted him; the familiar mechanical whir of his chest as she lay next to him. And now he’s gone.

In her heartbreak, she freezes just the way he froze. So much so that she can’t move. So much so that, when the spear shoots out of the wall behind her, she stays still.

And it impales her. Only slightly, but enough to do damage. With her final burst of energy, she pulls herself away from the metal, knowing that she’s dying anyway, hoping that her forbidden action doesn’t activate and kill her in two ways rather than one. But nothing comes; she only slides down next to Kiibo, and finally holds his hand, aching with her last breaths and finding slight comfort in the momentary feeling of his hand in hers. Both of them, now, are cold as ice.

Yumeno tries to outrun the spears with Yonaga’s hand in her own. The blindfold still over her girlfriend’s eyes, Yumeno knows that she bears the responsibility of two lives within her own. She’s not thinking straight as she runs; she’s just begging a god that she doesn’t believe in to please, save Yonaga. 

“Yumeno!” Chabashira shouts. Before Yumeno can react, Chabashira is next to her, sweeping Yonaga from her arms and running down the corridor; she’s always had brute strength, but now it shows as she dashes Yonaga out of danger, with Yumeno following closely behind.

When Yumeno glances behind her, she sees multiple spears jutting out from where she was just running; if Chabashira hadn’t used her speed and strength, both her and Yonaga would be dead right now. But…

Chabashira smiles up at her now that they’re all out of danger. When she starts choking, like Shirogane did, Yumeno realises that something is so horrifically, terribly wrong. She’s still smiling as her left eye begins to bleed, and the same side of her body goes bright purple.

“T-Thank you,” she chokes out, holding Yumeno’s hand, “f-for everything.”

“N-No,” Yumeno says, “I should thank you. C-Chabashira…Tenko…you…always p-protected me.”

“T-Then…my job…is done.”

With this, Chabashira’s eyes close for the final time.

* * *

 

Dodging the spears, Gokuhara panics – he’s been on his own this whole time, and it’s starting to affect him. When he sees Hoshi in the path of danger, he sweeps him off his feet and runs down the corridor, finally reaching a safe zone.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I just…stick with me?”

“Alright,” Hoshi replies, “I ain’t got nothin’ against you.”

“Let’s find somewhere to stay?”

“Alright.”

They walk together, trying to leave the chaos behind as they find a spare room and barricade the door.

“Hoshi, I’m sorry,” Gonta says, “you don’t deserve this.”

“None of us do.”

“No, but…I know Danganronpa hit you hard. You were the one who didn’t seem…ready to go to the outside world. And this…god, this.”

“I know. It’s fucked. But I’m glad I’m with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re great – you were great in Danganronpa, and you are now.”

“T-Thank you.”

“We could die tonight.”

“I know.”

“Look, I’m gonna say it out loud. You’re my favourite person here. When we get out of this mess, I…I wanna live with you. Y’know…both of us. An apartment. A few cats.”

“I…I’d like that.”

“So…you wanna show me your forbidden action? I’ll tell you mine. I can’t smoke. I’m fuckin’ dying for a cig, and this bullshit mastermind won’t let me.”

“O-Oh. Maybe this will help you quit? But I…I can’t refer to myself in third person.”

“Second time limit!” Monokuma’s voice bursts out, startling them both. They slowly close their eyes, and Hoshi rests his head onto Gonta’s chest, falling asleep to the rise and fall of his breaths.

* * *

 

When Yonaga wakes up, she doesn’t feel Yumeno’s hand in her own any more. Panicking, she tries to feel around the room – her blindfold is still on, and she’s still not used to it; she doesn’t want to forget the curves of Yumeno’s face, how her smile looks in the moonlight – she swears that they’ll both get out of here together, and when she can see again, she’ll never take her eyes off her girlfriend.

“Yumeno? Yumeno!”

When she gets no response, she panics. Surely taking off her blindfold won’t be so bad, there’s no blood here, and she’s with Yumeno, so she’s safe. This is something she trusts in more than anything – she believes in Yumeno more than she ever believed in Atua.

Lifting the fabric from her eyes, she first notices that their badly-barricaded door has been broken down; her breath catches in her throat as she adjusts not only to the light, but also to the wreck around the room. Things are upturned, and somebody has obviously made their way inside.

And then there’s Yumeno. She’s…not where she should be. It takes Yonaga a moment, her disillusioned and disorientated brain trying to piece together what’s happening, to place exactly why Yumeno looks so strange. Her feet…they’re off the floor. And there’s a rope around…

Oh god. Her eyes.

Her eyelids have been completely cut off, leaving tracks of blood dried on her face like tears. Her face, stuck in a twisted expression of gasping for air, haunts Yonaga as her bracelet begins to beep, but she doesn’t care.

She doesn’t care she doesn’t care she doesn’t care she doesn’t care.

Even when the poison in her bracelet overtakes her, all she can focus on is Yumeno’s dead, haunting face; she wonders if her girlfriend is already a ghost, with Atua, or floating aimlessly in a void of the crippling nothingness of the afterlife. It takes the last of her strength to grab onto Yumeno’s body, as she slips down to the floor and dies, with nobody to hold her hand.

* * *

 

The body discovery announcement echoes in Shinguji’s mind as he hears it once more, contemplating who the mastermind could have killed this time – it disgusts him. First, Danganronpa had the audacity to make him into a disgusting caricature, and now they mock him by throwing him into another killing game. He trudges down the hallway to the site of the murder with lead-laden steps, not wanting any of this to continue at all…what’s the point, anyway?

Nobody lives forever.

But, seeing Yumeno and Yonaga’s bodies, both pained in death, he realises that people so young shouldn’t die so early. Slowly, the others trickle in, and their reactions are muted in Shinguji’s mind – he’s just numb. Why does he have to go through this all _again?_

“We should do something,” he speaks up, “because we can’t keep repeating this cycle.”

“Y-Yeah,” Saihara replies, “let’s not just run off, now. We’ll talk about a…solution. But first…I should…I want to…let’s check Yumeno’s forbidden action. We already k-know Yonaga’s…she couldn’t see blood and…she probably saw…”

“It’s alright, Saihara,” Harukawa says, walking over to Yumeno’s hanging body; pulling a knife from her pocket, she cuts her body down and lays it next to Yonaga’s, “I’ll check her action.”

_“Must not fall asleep at any time except during given time limits.”_

“So that explains the eyelids,” Ouma says, “the mastermind is spiting us.”

“Why? What’s the point of giving her that extra pain, cutting her eyelids off?” Saihara says, looking horrified.

“To prove a point,” Ouma retorts.

“So,” Momota says, “we need to discuss what the hell we’re gonna do.”

“C-Can we,” Akamatsu says, “do this somewhere else?”

“Yeah,” he replies, “and be careful what you say. You never know what could be classed as a lie.”

They walk into the corridor together, eventually ending up back in the room they all initially woke up in; it stings Shinguji’s mind and heart to think of how their group has become fewer in such a short time span.

“So,” he says, “what shall we do?”

“We could all stick together,” Momota says, “y’know…safety in numbers?”

“Idiot,” Ouma rolls his eyes, “and what if one of us _is_ the mastermind? We’ve all been roaming all over this building, and has anyone actually seen a seventeenth student?”

“Nobody here would fucking do that,” Momota spits, “we’ve all been through the same shit.”

“Still, it’s not a viable solution.”

“Fuck you.”

“Guys,” Akamatsu says, exasperatedly.

“Sorry,” Momota says, “does anyone else have any other ideas?”

“Uh…we could meet here after every murder?” Gokuhara adds.

“We do that already,” Momota replies, “we need something more solid.”

“There isn’t anything,” Harukawa says.

“We have to do _something.”_

“Don’t you see, Momota? We’re cornered. We can’t do a damn thing because the mastermind planned _everything.”_

“T-There’s nothing to do,” Saihara says, “except continue as we are and h-hope for the best. Just…barricade your doors when the time limits are here, okay? We should all go and find safe places to be…we don’t know when the next time limit is gonna hit.”

“Yeah,” Ouma says, clinging onto Saihara as they walk away.

* * *

 

In their secluded room, Saihara turns to Ouma, confusion written on his face.

“This isn’t like you. You haven’t spent a moment of time alone,” he says, “and you’re always hanging off my arm. I don’t…mind…I like it, actually, but…”

Ouma holds his wrist up.

_“Must be within one metre of another living player at all times.”_

“O-Oh,” Saihara says, “and you chose me?”

“Yep. Seemed logical, given how much time we spent together in the hospital.”

“T-That’s fair.”

Ouma holds onto Saihara as they both sit together, looking at their barricaded door with unease.

“It’s so unfair,” Ouma says, “we shouldn’t have to go through this again.”

“I-I know. I mean…our friends are dead for real this time. And it makes me feel…strange. I get it…I get the Danganronpa motivation but…why us? Why now?”

“We’re in this together, though. I’ve got you and you’ve got me.”

“Y-Yeah.”

When Monokuma’s voice crackles through the speakers once more, they don’t even move, they merely let sleep overcome them and fate take its toll.

* * *

 

Hoshi wakes again with sleep still in his eyes and a pounding in his head; he can’t quite place the strange feeling in his mind, but he knows that something bad has happened. Checking to his side, he sees Gokuhara waking up also, and this soothes him somewhat.

“A body has been…” Monokuma says.

“Discovered. Yeah, we get it,” Hoshi mocks.

“A-Another body?” Gokuhara says, shaking and grabbing Hoshi’s hand.

“That’s just how life is in this hell. But at least it ain’t you or me.”

“B-But it’s _someone!”_

“We should go and see.”

Walking together, caution in their steps, they find themselves outside a small room off the corridor, the door broken down and a few people already inside. Hoshi sees Harukawa, gripping Momota’s hand, with her other arm around Amami – he walks inside to angle his eyes and see the body.

* * *

 

Shinguji Korekiyo. Lying on the floor, his throat slit. But the main thing that makes him look undeniably dead…his lips. His gaunt face, white with horror, masks a terror hiding on his mouth; his lips have been completely cut off, leaving him with permanent death-surprise on his face.

“W-What the fuck,” Akamatsu says.

“He…” Gokuhara says.

“Let’s check his forbidden action,” Ouma walks forward towards the body, biting back his horror. He lifts up Shinguji’s wrist.

_“Must not wear a mask or any facial makeup.”_

“Hmm,” he says, “and they cut off his lips. This is definitely some fucked up Danganronpa vengeance.”

“B-But why?” Saihara says.

“I don’t know yet.”

“W-We should…go.”

“Not yet!” Monokuma, as if he were listening, appears again through the speakers.

“What do you want now?” Harukawa says.

“I want to give you a hint!”

“A hint?”

“Yep! One of your forbidden actions is a lie!”

“What?”

“Someone in here is lying. Their forbidden action won’t trigger, because it’s not their true forbidden action!”

“S-So,” Harukawa says, “they’re the mastermind?”

“Maybeeeee. And one more thing! Someone in here is a dishonest liar! Because this person hasn’t showed their _full_ forbidden action.”

“What?”

“Someone in here, in your little group, has showed only half of their forbidden action!”

“I’m not letting you manipulate us,” Harukawa glares at the speakers overhead, “so fuck off.”

She holds Momota and Amami’s hands and walks out of the room. Leading them to another empty room, she doesn’t even bother to barricade the door before sitting them down.

“Momota,” she says, “the fourth time limit is coming up, and I’m still alive. After that, you’re essentially free from your forbidden action. How can we use that against the mastermind?”

“I…I don’t know. I mean I guess I could try and break out of here, but so could most of us. Harumaki, I feel…we’re…stuck.”

“We’ll think of something. But for now…I can trust you guys, right?”

“Yeah,” Momota says. Amami nods.

“So none of you are lying about your forbidden actions or anything? I’m sorry, I just…”

“No, I get it,” Momota says, “we’re all on edge here. But you can trust us, at least, Harumaki.”

“I’m glad for that.”

They spend an hour or so just talking, with Momota translating Amami’s sign for Harukawa. He imagines that it’s hard for Amami not to have spoken a single word, but they’re all bound by their forbidden actions, and he relates to the feeling of helplessness. As long as Harukawa survives…he’ll be fine.

When the fourth time limit activates, he smiles as he falls asleep.

* * *

 

Gokuhara wakes to absolute terror. The first thing he sees is Hoshi, but he doesn’t look right. In his half-awake state, Gokuhara sees a blur of red on his favourite person’s body, and he fumbles his way over to Hoshi, hands trembling as he feels the wounds around his body.

He’s been brutalised. One stab wound apparently wasn’t enough, because Gokuhara feels multiple wounds all over Hoshi’s lifeless body; all he can think about is the fact that they’ll never get to adopt cats together, or live in a sleepy apartment somewhere quiet. Finally, he’d found something to hold onto, and again, it had been ripped from him – fuck being a gentleman, he’s broken and terrified and filled with the horrific anger towards Danganronpa that fuels his whole body. And he screams. Before Monokuma can even announce the body discovery, people hear his screams and come running.

It’s Saihara who points out that Hoshi has a cigarette in his mouth.

_“Must not smoke.”_

“T-They’re definitely taunting us,” he says.

“W-Why,” Gokuhara replies, his voice haunted, “what did we ever do?”

“W-We signed up for this, don’t you see? This is punishment. Somebody’s sick idea of punishment.”

“This is awful,” Harukawa says, “all our friends…we tried so hard…we survived…and now…”

“It’s alright, Harumaki,” Momota tells her, “you’re still alive. Focus on that, alright?”

“I-I can’t.”

“It’s okay, darling. Don’t worry. Please…I’ve got you.”

She’s been trying to be strong for the past year, but she breaks down in fresh tears, reminiscent of the ones she shed when she realised that the game was a simulation and that Momota was still alive. Stuck in the terrifying liminality of this new horror, she panics, and clings onto him; he holds her up, kissing her forehead with a strange certainty.

“H-He could have quit smoking,” Gokuhara says, quietly, “he was so strong. It’s not fair.”

“I…I know,” Harukawa replies.

 _“Let’s go,”_ Amami signs, _“it’ll only cause more hurt if we stay here.”_

This time, it’s Amami who leads Harukawa and Momota away from the chaos of death. Silently, they both follow, not knowing how to do anything else – after everything, they both feel like ghosts already.

* * *

 

And then they’re back in the first room they stayed in; barricading the doors feels so familiar. This time, it’s a communal effort, and they collapse together onto the floor after making sure they’re safe.

 _“Is there any way to end this?”_ Amami signs.

“I don’t know,” Momota says, “I feel so fucking powerless.”

“Me too,” Harukawa says, her voice a mindless echo.

“The time limit could spring on us any minute.”

“I want to do something,” Harukawa says, holding onto Momota’s face as she pulls him into a kiss. He reciprocates, his hands soft against her cheeks as they fall into one entity; in her peripheral vision, she sees his bracelet flashing his forbidden action, only…

Only, it seems longer than what he originally showed her. _Liar._

Sharply, she pulls his wrist towards her face, and by the time he realises what she’s doing, he can’t pull away.

_“Must not let Harukawa Maki die before the fourth time limit is up…but, must not pass the fifth time limit with Harukawa Maki still alive.”_

“W-What?” Harukawa chokes out.

“I…” Momota says, before realising the expression on her face and clasping his hand over her mouth so she can’t speak.

“Mm, mmmm,” Harukawa mumbles, trying to form words.

“Don’t you dare,” Momota says, “don’t you dare die for me.”

 _“What’s going on?”_ Amami signs.

“My forbidden action is letting Harumaki live past the fifth time limit,” he says, sadness twisting in his gut and his voice, “and she’s trying to activate her forbidden action so I won’t die.”

 _“But you’ll die!”_ Amami signs.

“It’s me or Harumaki. And I’ll be damned if I let her die.”

_“I understand. Tell her I’m sorry.”_

“Sorry?”

_“Yeah.”_

“Harumaki…Amami says he’s sorry.”

Once Momota has spoken these words, Amami walks over to Harukawa and punches her square in the face, knocking her out.

_“I’m sorry, Momota.”_

“No,” he says, “I get it. It’s worth it. She’ll live through this, like she deserves to.”

_“But you’ll die. Are you okay with that?”_

“It’s like your sister, Amami. You love her, and you’d do anything for her, right? You’d protect her with your life. So don’t tell me you don’t get it.”

_“I get it.”_

“Ready for the time limit, guys?” Monokuma says.

“This is it. Amami…thank you.”

_“Thank you, Momota.”_

“Take care of Harumaki for me, please.”

_“Of course.”_

When Momota falls asleep, he feels venom in his veins. His last conscious action is to grasp Harukawa’s hand. He dies…but not alone.

* * *

 

Harukawa wakes up with her whole face aching. Slowly, she remembers being punched in the face by Amami, and then it all floods back to her.

She stumbles over to Momota’s body; he lies, his left side sickeningly purple, his eye bloodshot and bleeding – still, she can’t give up. Pressing on his chest, she tries to revive him by blowing air into his mouth, but after a minute, she feels Amami pull her back.

“What the _fuck?”_ Harukawa says. “You just let him...?”

Amami signs to her.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she cries.

He pulls her close as she sobs into his chest; stroking her hair, he lets her mourn for as long as she needs. No body discovery announcement comes, so they stay there for the best part of an hour, as Harukawa cries and Amami tries his hardest not to look at Momota’s dead body. Without words, he manages to hold her and make sure she doesn’t do anything reckless.

“W-Why?” Harukawa chokes out after an eternity.

Amami tries to sign, but she doesn’t understand. Looking through the room, he finally finds a piece of paper and an old pen with barely any ink left in it. He writes something down, and then passes the sheet to her.

_“Momota wanted me to take care of you.”_

“I don’t need to be taken care of! Fuck you,” she spits. Amami starts to write again.

_“I know. But I supported his decision. He loves you.”_

“Loved. Past tense. He’s gone. He’s gone, Amami… _again._ I let it happen again!”

_“It’s not your fault. He was a stubborn bastard but we both loved him. You have to live on for him.”_

“I don’t want to live! Fuck what he wanted, he left me, and that’s selfish!”

_“Do you mean that?”_

“N-No,” she chokes out, falling into his arms again, “I just w-want him back. I can’t lose h-him twice.”

Amami holds her as she wets his shirt with her tears; she clutches onto the fabric and wails like she has nothing left in the whole world to love.

* * *

 

Ouma knows that something is wrong. He sees it in Saihara’s face, the way he clutches at his own wrist and refuses to talk.

“There’s been no body discovery announcement,” he says, and Saihara looks up, “so this means things are changing. The mastermind hasn’t gone out and killed anyone this time. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Saihara says, “but that’s gotta be good, right?”

“Maybe. But we need to think about _why_ there hasn’t been a murder.”

“Whatever. We should go and see the others anyway.”

As they walk down the hallway together, Saihara struggles to keep up with Ouma’s frantic pace; at some point, his hat falls off, and he scrambles to put it back on.

Ouma turns around.

“S-Saihara,” he says, “are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah…why?”

“Because…at the beginning of the game, you rushed to put your hat on. I assumed your forbidden action was…not wearing…but…”

“I-I think I put it back on in time.”

“But Monokuma hasn’t been this loose with the rules before. And he said…oh god…one person among us is lying about their _true forbidden action._ Saihara, please…”

“I…I…I…I…oh, fuck it. Whatever, Ouma,” Saihara runs to his side and presses a knife to his neck, “just walk forwards.”

“Y-You’re the mastermind?”

“All will be revealed.”

“Saihara…I…I _trusted you!”_

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

* * *

 

They find everyone else, and Saihara revels in their shocked faces when they see the knife against Ouma’s neck.

“S-Saihara?” Harukawa says.

“Guess all our cards are on the table,” he replies, malice and despair in his voice, “I’m the mastermind.”

“W-What?”

“Yep. Me. Little old protagonist Saihara orchestrated this whole thing!”

“Why?”

“Because this whole thing is disgusting. Can’t you see? You’re all fake. You make me want to be _sick!_ All of you, coming out of Danganronpa like the people they made you into. You’re not even _real._ The whole thing was a simulation, but you retained your personalities from in there!”

“Y-You mean you…didn’t?”

“Of course not! I woke up the same bloodthirsty maniac I was when I applied. They must have fucked up the simulation somehow, but I’m glad. ‘Cause I can see it all now, the fakery. So I needed to teach you a lesson. Killing you wasn’t the main objective, you’re all just pests who got in the way! I wanted to make you like me; make you into who you were before Danganronpa.”

“S-So,” Ouma chokes out, “you’re the one who killed everyone? You gave them forbidden actions and t-then killed them in a way that betrayed them…all because you wanted to shape us into who we were before?”

“Yep! And it’s beautiful, seeing all that despair and those broken bodies. God, killing feels _amazing!”_

“S-Saihara…” Harukawa says, “you’re my _friend.”_

“No. That bastard character in the simulation was your friend. But I don’t give a shit about you – I don’t care about any of you. I’m jaded and pissed off. Team Danganronpa failed us all by letting us survive, so I needed to rectify that. God, for a fucking _year_ I had to go to therapy with you guys and hear you talk about all your useless bullshit…I wanted to tear my goddamn hair out! But finally, I’ve been planning this, and it’s all coming to an end here and now!”

“You…how could you? Momota was your _best friend,”_ Harukawa spits, “and you forced him to leave us all again!”

“He was never my friend. Maybe he was friends with that simpering shy detective in the game, but he’s not real. None of you are fucking real. I’m the only one here who’s a true _person!”_

“That’s not true!”

“Whatever,” Saihara says, lowering the knife from Ouma’s neck and grabbing him by the arms, throwing him across the room, well more than a metre away. Terror aches in Ouma’s eyes as his bracelet begins to beep and the poison begins to overtake him. He can’t react – nobody can even run towards him before it’s all over; his left side the same horrific purple, his eye bloodshot, his soul confined to a non-mortal plane.

In the horror and confusion, Saihara runs forwards and grabs Amami by the neck, holding the knife against his gut.

“One of you better show some _goddamn humanity,”_ he says, “and activate your forbidden action. Or Amami gets it.”

Before Akamatsu or Gokuhara can do anything, Harukawa screams out loud to silence them all. The word _‘die’_ echoes around the room.

“Nobody else is dying for me,” she says, listening to the sound of her own bracelet. As the poison seeps into her, she feels her insides burning, and collapses to the floor. Vaguely, she feels Akamatsu’s hands cupping her face, but she has no reason to even try and hold on; a light echoes around her mind, and she sees Momota’s face once more, smiling sadly in her direction. Disembodied and dying, she finds her soul drawn towards him.

But her body merely grows cold on the floor as Akamatsu cries. As promised, Saihara lets Amami go, and he stumbles towards Akamatsu and Gokuhara.

“Look,” Saihara says, showing his own bracelet.

_“Must convince at least one person to join the Danganronpa revolution.”_

“I’m staking my life on this,” he says, “I want to prove to you that Danganronpa is the way forward.”

“Why the fuck would we ever do that?” Akamatsu says, bitterly.

“Because _you’re not real!_ Come on, you applied for Danganronpa, and they failed us all by making the whole damn thing a simulation. You deserve better. You deserve to be the ghostly face of Danganronpa, beaming wide on a poster! People will die for your legacy, isn’t that beautiful? C’mon, guys! You signed up for this! All you have to do is remember who you were before the simulation.”

“No,” Akamatsu says. Amami nods, and Gokuhara stands in front of them both, ready to protect them.

“Guys! You’re characters! You can’t make your own decisions! So join me in reviving Danganonpa!”

“No,” they say in almost-unison.

“B-But,” Saihara echoes, before his own bracelet begins to beep, “come on!”

They stand steadfast, waiting for the bracelet countdown to end his life. However, instead of being poisoned, a chain erupts from the wall and latches onto Saihara, dragging him away.

Amami, Akamatsu, and Gokuhara watch as he’s dragged behind a glass screen and placed onto a chair. Multiple Monokumas surround him, all wearing similar bracelets to the ones they’re now all too familiar with. The Danganronpa logo begins to descend from the ceiling, bright, disgusting neon.

Wax dolls of every participant in the fifty-third season surround him. He looks terrified, but strangely satisfied all at once. When the dolls advance, he closes his eyes.

One of them ties a rope around his neck and hoists him upwards so that he’s standing on his tiptoes; another wraps his wrists in thorns. The third begins to light his clothes on fire, whilst the fourth stands at the side with a flamethrower. Coming fifth, the wax doll of Momota moves mechanically towards Saihara, kissing him on the cheek before pushing him further into his chair. The neon Danganronpa light teeters on a loose string until it falls, pressing him into the ground.

Saihara coughs blood as all of the Monokumas surround him, each one with a flashing bracelet. In a flash of bright white, the room erupts into fire, and Saihara vanishes alongside the smoke. Even as everything clears, only ash remains.

* * *

 

Finally, achingly, the doors to the building open to the side of the survivors. The outside world blinds them as their bracelets fall off their wrists. Holding hands, Akamatsu, Amami, and Gokuhara walk outside.

Outside, to a world where Danganronpa no longer rules them.

**Author's Note:**

> My beautiful, wonderful friend Sy was wondering on Twitter what Maki's NG code would be, and I asked her if I could write a fic based on this idea. So, thank you, Sy!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. Please leave a comment if you can, it would mean a lot to me!
> 
> FORBIDDEN ACTIONS:
> 
> Akamatsu: Must not answer a question with the truth.  
> Shirogane: Must not witness any lies.  
> Amami: Must not speak for the duration of the killing game.  
> Saihara: Must not take off your hat / Must convince at least one person to join the Danganronpa revolution.  
> Hoshi: Must not smoke.  
> Toujou: Must not cross your hands.  
> Shinguji: Must not wear a mask or any facial makeup.  
> Yonaga: Must not see any blood.  
> Chabashira: Must not touch any women.  
> Iruma: Must not touch anything metal.  
> Gokuhara: Must not refer to yourself in third person.  
> Momota: Must not let Harukawa Maki die before the fourth time limit is up / Must not pass the fifth time limit with Harukawa Maki still alive.  
> Ouma: Must be within one metre of another living player at all times.  
> Harukawa: Must not speak the words 'die', 'died', 'death', or 'dying.'  
> Yumeno: Must not fall asleep at any time except during the given time limits.  
> Kiibo: Must not express any human emotion.
> 
> EDIT: A few wonderful people pointed out a few errors wherein Harumaki accidentally said one of her NG code forbidden words, and once when Amami spoke - I think those things have been all edited out now! Thank you, and I'm sorry I have dumbass disorder
> 
> Also if you're wondering how Ouma's NG code didn't activate when Saihara was committing murder, I have two words for you: papoose carrier. Yes, that means Saihara was running round with a knife in his hand and murder in his eyes, whilst a sleepy Ouma was curled against his chest.


End file.
